Blog: Angela Rayner has survived a reshuffle - now can she help Labour survive?

• Blog by ITV Granada Political Correspondent Hannah Miller

Angela Rayner is perhaps the first politician to be sacked, fight back, and walk away with more job titles than she had in the first place.

Along with being Ashton-under-Lyne MP and Deputy Labour leader, she's now First Secretary of State and Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster - along with the newly made-up 'Shadow Secretary of State for the Future of Work' (a position in which she 'shadows' precisely no one).

But the Ashton-under-Lyne MP argues that work must be at the centre of Labour's thinking - her language echoes that of Tony Blair, who argued people needed 'a hand-up, not a hand-out.'

Angela Rayner tells ITV News: 'We had a patronising tone'

The Conservative Party have for years been talking up the importance of employment - their 'Plan for Jobs' front and centre of the Government's Covid response. But for Angela Rayner the focus is different - drawing on her own background as a home care worker to talk up the need for better pay for those on some of the least secure contracts.

There is no doubt her life story matches closely with the values that Labour traditionally claims to inhabit. And when she talks with real life experience, Angela Rayner's message is impossible to ignore.

Along with Andy Burnham, her name is one that has cut through with a public who care more about what politicians can do for them than about the inside machinations of the Labour Party.

But it is significant that in recent days, both have said that Labour needs to make more of the power (and perhaps the personalities) it has in places like North West. Amid the fallout from the weekend, the party has seemed slow to celebrate its victories. 

You get the sense that having won her latest battle, Angela Rayner will do all in her power to change that.

Video: Hannah Miller talks to Angela Rayner